Bad Boy Brawly Brown

— 39 —

Jackson Blue was in his bathrobe, too.

I shook my head when he came to the door.

“What’s wrong with you, Easy?” he asked.

“Don’t nobody work?” I said. “I mean, am I the only one who thinks he got to get up in the morning and at least put on a pair of pants?”

Jackson grinned. White teeth against black skin has always had a soothing effect on me. It made me happy.

Jackson led me down the stairs into his house.

“I’m workin’,” he said as he went. “Been readin’ about a guy named Isaac Newton. You ever hear about him?”

“Of course I have,” I said. “Every schoolkid knows about Newton’s apple.”

“Did you know that he invented calculus?”

“No,” I said, not particularly interested.

I took my seat at his table and he took to the one-piece school desk. He stretched out in the chair like a cat or an arrogant adolescent.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, at the same time this dude name’a Leibniz came up with the same calculations, but Newton invented it, too. Newton was a mothahfuckah.”

“How long ago did he live?” I asked.

“Died in 1727,” Jackson said. “A rich man, too.”

“So he did his work,” I said. “You just sittin’ ’round here in your drawers.”

“But, Easy,” Jackson said with that grin. “I’m learnin’. I know things. I know things ninety-nine percent’a your white people don’t know.”

“I know about gravity, Jackson. Maybe I didn’t know about calculus, but what good is it knowin’ that, anyway?”

“It’s not just that, Easy. It’s not knowin’ one thing. It’s under-standin’ the man. If you understand him, then you got somethin’ to think about in your own world.”

He had me then. Just like Sam Houston talking about newspaper articles, Jackson made claims that made me want to stop and understand.

“Okay, man,” I said, looking at my wristwatch. “Two minutes to hear what you mean.”

I expected Jackson to smile again, but instead he put on his serious face.

“It’s like this,” he said. “Newton was a religious man, what they called a Arianist...”

“A what?”

“It don’t matter, except that it meant that he was a heretic in England, but he didn’t let nobody know. He was a alchemist, too. Tryin’ to turn lead to gold and like that. He lived through the plague years. And at the end of his life he was the president of the science club and the head of the national mint.”

“All that?”

Jackson nodded almost solemnly. “As the head of the mint he was in charge of executions. And all them things he discovered — he kept ’em to himself for years before he let the world know.”

“So what, Jackson?”

“So what? This is black history we talkin’ here, Easy.”

“So now you sayin’ Newton was a black man?”

“No, brother. I’m sayin’ that all they teach in schools is how a apple done falled on Isaac’s head and that’s it. They don’t teach you about how he believed in magic or how he was in his heart against the Church of England. They don’t want you to know that you can sit in your room and discover things all by yourself that nobody else knows. I’m down here collectin’ knowledge while some other Negro is outside someplace swingin’ a hammer. That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Swingin’ a hammer is more than you do,” I said out of reflex. I didn’t really believe it. Jackson Blue’s rendition of Isaac Newton reminded me of me, a man living in shadows in almost every part of his life. A man who keeps secrets and harbors passions that could get him killed if he let them out into the world.

“You a fool if you believe that, Easy.”

“And you just a fool, Jackson,” I said.

“How you see that?”

“This man you talkin’ about kept his secrets — for a while. But then he let the world know — that’s the only reason you know it today. When are you gonna let the world know?”

“One day I might surprise ya, Easy. Uh-huh.”

“Well,” I said, “until that day comes, I need you to do somethin’ for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Before I get into that, why don’t you answer my question?”

“What question?”

“How come you in your house in your underwear in the afternoon? I mean, who pays the rent?”

“Somebody who thinks that my studies are something important, that’s who.”

I could tell that he wasn’t going to reveal his golden goose. And it really wasn’t any of my business, so I went back to the reason I had come.

“I need you to apply for a job, Jackson,” I said.

“A job? I don’t know what the fuck’s got into you, brother. But I done worked more in my forty-two years than most white men twice my age. An’ I’m a lazy mothahfuckah.”

I had to laugh. It was funny and it was true. I celebrated the moment of joy by lighting up a cigarette.

“I ain’t askin’ you to work. I mean, maybe one day, tops. I just want you to apply for the job and then take it. But you don’t have to build up no real sweat or nuthin’.”

“What kinda job?”

“Construction.”

“Construction? Damn, Easy, that’s the hardest work out there. Just spendin’ the day out under that sun like to give me heat stroke.”

“Two hundred fifty dollars for one day,” I said.

“Where do I sign up?”

“Manelli Construction Company down in Compton. You can use John for a reference.”

“What you wanna know from them?”

“Everything you can find out. Who’s in charge. Who’s workin’ there. I wanna know about payroll and catering trucks and who’s on duty what hours. I wanna know about security and what anybody knows about Henry Strong’s murder three nights ago.”

Jackson digested the order, nodded.

“This about Brawly and the First Men?”

“Strong got killed out to there. John’s crew worked for Manelli when John couldn’t make the paychecks and they needed help. Somehow Mercury and Chapman got sumpin’ to do with what’s happenin’ with Brawly. I just need to know.”

Jackson nodded again and then extended his palm. I laid one of Mr. Strong’s hundred-dollar bills across it. That made Jackson smile.

We settled up quickly after that. He’d go down to Manelli’s that afternoon and show up for work the next day. Because the amount of time crossed over two days, I promised to pay for his expenses, as long as they didn’t get out of hand.

After that we talked about Newton some more. Jackson told me that the kind of calculus Newton created was called differential calculus. He tried to explain that mathematics was the language of the way things worked, that that was the real secret men were always going for — to speak in the language of things. I barely understood him, even on an everyday level, but I knew that he was saying something that was important to my life.